


Do You Believe in Magic?

by maureen_corpse



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Carmilla - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Magic AU, catmilla, perry remains uncredited by name but she's there, stage magic au, tiny lil bit of ellanny, vampire shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 12:50:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11669466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maureen_corpse/pseuds/maureen_corpse
Summary: There was a whole story to the Countess’s show. Some of it seemed like a bit of a stretch to get the illusions in--Laura didn’t really buy that levitating Ell was an essential part of wooing her. But the characters were nineteenth-century European women (more or less, as the illusions required) so Laura couldn’t really comment much. Maybe levitation was a thing for nineteenth century lesbians.





	Do You Believe in Magic?

__

Laura was handcuffed and surrounded by water and nearly out of time. She struggled with the cuffs, cursing herself for her past decisions, and she rose to the air pocket in the top of the milk can to take a deep breath before returning to the window in the wall of the can to make the audience worry.

_ Some _ magicians used fake handcuffs. Who could tell? But no, Laura Hollis just had to use real cuffs and escape from them the old-fashioned way. It worked, and it always worked on time, but still--this method acting thing wasn’t always her favorite.

Below the window in the can, she freed herself from the cuffs. Outside, her lovely, tall assistants Danny and Kirsch raised the curtain again.

Just a few seconds to remove the lid with its false collar from the milk can, climb out, put the lid back, and pose by the can. She made it, though, standing triumphantly next to her former prison, cuffs in hand, as Kirsch and Danny dropped the curtain.

The applause could have been more thunderous, but Laura accepted what she got.

“Thank you, everyone!” she called out. “I’m Veronica Orsini, and that’s my show! I hope you have a magical night!” With that, she let Kirsch and Danny escort her offstage.

She decided once she was drying out that that wasn’t the best farewell. No more promising to let Kirsch help with the writing. He was good at creating and implementing illusions. Talking about them, though, just didn’t suit him.

“So, you guys still aren’t going to that show tonight with me, huh?” She asked once she was dry and they were on their way out of the theater.

“‘Fraid not,” Danny answered. “I don’t have any interest in ‘Countess Carmilla’s Coffin of Cruelty’ or whatever it was.”

Laura looked hopefully up at Kirsch.

“Can’t, little nerd,” Kirsch said. “I’ve got a hot date tonight.”

“You can’t call every date you have with SJ a hot date,” Danny said. “There are other kinds of dates.”

“Just because you two can’t find love, you don’t have to get mad at me for going on hot dates with my hot girlfriend.”

“Kirsch, I’m happy for you and SJ,” Laura said. “I guess I’ll just have to see what this new magician is about on my own.”

Kirsch promised to tell any cute girls he met to come to their next show so Danny and Laura could get hot dates, Danny rolled her eyes, and the three of them parted ways for the evening.

Danny wasn’t exactly correct in calling it “Countess Carmilla’s Coffin of Cruelty.” Still, the ad they had seen for this newcomer had named a Countess Carmilla Karnstein, and with all the red and black it did seem a little...vampirey. Laura wasn’t sold on the theme, but she still wanted to check out this new competitor. They weren’t competing directly, however--Laura’s was a family show, with only a moderate amount of peril and just a little flexing from Danny and Kirsch; Countess Carmilla’s promised to be gory and sexy and late at night.

(The milk can escape was the most perilous part of Veronica Orsini’s act--no one really bought the parts where she cut Kirsch into thirds, or even where Danny crammed her into “small” box and filled it with swords. Those were all about getting caught up in the excitement and showmanship.)

No matter the differences, not everyone wanted to see two magic shows in a day, so it was worth checking out. In case her audience left her for a sexy goth.

So Laura headed home to take a short break and get ready for a night on the town. Or a night seeing one magic show and going home to eat cookies.

#

Unfortunately, “sexy goth” wasn’t the worst way to describe Countess Carmilla. She already looked the part with pale skin and dark hair, and at one point in her show, she came out on stage in a corset and leather pants and shared champagne with Ell, her lovely assistant. Sexy goth it was.

There was a whole story to the Countess’s show. Some of it seemed like a bit of a stretch to get the illusions in--Laura didn’t really buy that levitating Ell was an essential part of wooing her. But the characters were nineteenth-century European women (more or less, as the illusions required) so Laura couldn’t really comment much. Maybe levitation was a thing for nineteenth century lesbians.

Laura’s nineteenth century knowledge extended to magic and related topics. Not so much love.

Or vampires, for that matter. The illusions really ramped up as soon as a different lovely assistant with curly red hair, portraying Carmilla’s evil vampire mother, informed Ell that Carmilla, too, was a vampire. That was when Ell got out a bow and arrow and shot Carmilla through the heart. Pretty dramatic, but but probably effective.

Except that the Countess survived, despaired, and was chained up and placed in a coffin full of fake blood by her evil vampire mother.

Upon seeing Countess Carmilla displace waves of fake blood and get padlocked in the coffin, Laura immediately began to despair herself. Sure, the milk can escape was traditional, but turning it into a coffin? That was cool. That was really cool. That was terrifying.

Laura wasn’t going to add a coffin full of blood to her family show, but she maybe needed to update her magic. Something cooler than a milk can. Something cooler than cutting Kirsch up.

That was pretty cool, though. Just having a male lovely assistant to slice and dice was cool.

Laura held her breath and reassured herself while waiting for Carmilla to escape her coffin. Laura was plenty cool. Blood in coffins? Not cool. Gross. Just gross.

If she had convinced herself that the coffin and blood version of the milk can escape wasn’t cool by the time Carmilla appeared beside her coffin, chains in hand, all that confidence vanished when Carmilla did her grand finale: turning a girl into a tiger.

Or, rather, turning herself into a panther.

Ell and the evil vampire mother loaded Carmilla into a cage that was chained closed and raised a few feet off the stage. Laura barely had a chance to get a good look at it, but by her estimation, it did a great job of looking like it had nowhere to contain a woman or a big cat.

She knew that there had to be something. Mirrors and compartments. The cage just did a really good job of looking like it was entirely steel with no place for hiding. Laura was good at spotting things like this, she liked to think. But the cage bugged her, even as the curtain came down, revealing the Countess had vanished and a black panther had appeared in her place.

Then something went wrong. The cage fell, the steel bars on the bottom clanging loudly against the stage, the door came open, and the panther leaped out to chase Ell and the mother into the wings.

Laura didn’t like an excess of peril in her shows because she didn’t want children to be there and watch Kirsch get impaled or Danny eaten by a lion. And here she was, maybe watching people being chased by a wild animal intent on killing them.

She gripped the armrests of her seat tightly and waited. If there was a loose panther--

The cat returned to the stage, dragging a severed arm. Laura stared at it and told herself it was a prop, partly because she wanted to believe it and partly because it  _ did _ look sort of fake. The lighting wasn’t great. All the better to be spooky with.

The panther dropped the arm in the center of the stage and leaped back into the cage, even using a chain to close the door behind it. Two unnamed lovely assistants appeared and raised a curtain, and when it fell again, the panther had been replaced with the magician.

As Carmilla closed the show, Laura relaxed. It was just a well-trained panther and a dangerous trick. Nothing to worry about beyond the normal worrying with magic. Though if the panther had gone for the audience…

Laura decided not to think about it. This show had definitely gotten her heart rate up. She saw what she came here for, and now she had to get home and get ready for another day of magic.

#

Laura didn’t really think about Countess Carmilla (or was it Countess Karnstein?) for the next week. She was busy. Performing, practicing, trying to add some coolness factors to her best illusions. Entertaining the masses was a full-time job.

But the day after Kirsch’s next hot date with SJ, he told Laura and Danny that he had seen a cute girl this time, and he had told her to come to their show,  _ and _ she had said she would check it out.

“Kirsch, it’s nice of you to try to be our wingman, but you really don’t have to,” Laura said.

“Yeah, Kirsch. We could get dates if we wanted to,” Danny said.

“That’s the problem! You want the dates, but you don’t want to  _ get _ the dates!” Kirsch insisted.

“Are we doing the show tonight or not?” Laura asked.

“Just--if you see a cute girl in the audience, choose her for the card thing or something, okay?”

“Kirsch,” Danny said, “our audiences always have cute girls in them. Because girls are cute.”

Kirsch thought about that for a second. Then he nodded. “That’s true.”

“Now that that’s settled, let’s start the show,” Laura said.

And start the show they did. It all went according to plan, right up until Laura looked for a volunteer for the card thing, and there, in the third row, sat a smiling dark-haired woman.

Her amused smile turned to a smirk when their eyes met.

That felt a bit like a challenge to Laura, so she went ahead and asked Carmilla to come on stage.

Carmilla sauntered up there with her, smirking all the while.

Laura, ever the professional, maintained her composure even though Carmilla was making her kind of nervous.

“Thank you for volunteering,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“Carmilla,” Carmilla said.

Using her stage name. Huh.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Carmilla. I’m Veronica,” Laura said.

“Oh, I know who you are,” Carmilla said.

Laura ignored that comment and handed Carmilla an unopened pack of Bicycle playing cards. “Carmilla, would you kindly examine these cards and assure your fellow audience members that they have not been tampered with?”

“Certainly.”

Carmilla took the cards and looked the pack over, soon pronouncing them untampered with.

She cooperated for the duration of the trick, shuffling the cards, choosing her card, writing on it when prompted, acting surprised when Laura found the card not in the deck but in Kirsch’s pocket.

“Is this your card?” Laura asked, holding up the jack of hearts.

“It sure is,” Carmilla said.

Laura glanced at the face of the card to see what Carmilla had written. “And is that the series of numbers you wrote on it?”

Carmilla nodded, acted impressed, and let herself be led toward the steps so she could return to her seat. But when Laura offered to let her keep the creased and abused card as a souvenir--a silly thing to offer a fellow magician, but they were both acting here--Carmilla shook her head and said, “You keep it. Call me.”

That was when Laura realized Carmilla had written a phone number on the card.

Laura slipped the card into a pocket that she wasn't using for any upcoming illusions and got on with her act. She could react to being hit on in the middle of her show by someone actually potentially interesting later, after the audience cleared out.

And after Kirsch clapped her on the back too hard and said, “That was her! The cute girl I told to see our show!”

“You went on a hot date with SJ and told Carmilla Karnstein to come to our show?” Danny asked.

Kirsch shrugged. “Crazy stuff happens when you have a social life.”

Laura removed the dampened jack of hearts from her pocket and stared at it. “She gave me her number.”

“SCORE!” Kirsch said. “When are you going to call her?”

“Hey, I never said I was going to call her,” Laura said, unfolding the card and waving it a bit to dry it out. The numbers were still intact. Her thoughts returned to Carmilla’s show and that scanty cage for the panther switch.

“You need to call her. Do it for me. Be a bro,” Kirsch said.

“I don’t know how calling her would make me a bro, but we’ll see. Do you two have time to discuss the milk can escape with me tonight after I get something dry on?”

Danny wasn’t impressed with Laura’s description of Carmilla’s coffin escape, but Kirsch agreed with Laura that it was pretty cool.

“The milk can is classic,” Danny muttered.

“The milk can is classic, but who even knows what a milk can is? The coffin produces a visceral reaction in the audience,” Laura said. “It’s effective.”

Danny didn’t argue, but also didn’t offer any ideas.

“We’ll figure out something cooler for you,” Kirsch promised.

Laura’s mind drifted to the card, now dry and in her jacket pocket. “I could...talk to Carmilla and get her perspective.”

“Laura, if you call her, it’s gotta be for a date, not a professional meeting!” Kirsch cried.

Danny nodded. “Not everything is about work. You could just have a good time with your hot vampire.”

Laura frowned up at both of them. “First of all, magic is how I have a good time. Second of all, she’s not  _ my _ hot vampire. Or--or hot anything!”

“Not yet,” Kirsch said.

Laura groaned. “I’m going home. Good night, you...tall jerks!”

With that, she stormed away, still thinking about the phone number she had no intention of dialing.

#

Laura called the number the next day, sitting at her desk, pretending she was making a professional call, even though Danny and Kirsch had told her Carmilla Karnstein’s number was to be used for social purposes only.

After almost too many rings, Carmilla picked up and said, “Hello?” in a bored voice.

“Uh...hi,” Laura said. She realized she should have planned this better. If she could write scripts for her shows, she could do the same for her phone calls. “This is...Veronica.”

Nope, meeting girls by choosing them as volunteers for the card thing wasn’t going to work.

“It’s so nice to hear from you, Veronica,” Carmilla said, sounding less bored by the second. “What’s your real name, cutie?”

“...Laura.”

“Laura. Much better.”

Laura needed to take control of this phone conversation back. “Well, what’s your real name?”

“Carmilla Karnstein.”

“Come on, that’s a great stage name name, but no one is named Carmilla Karnstein in real life,” Laura said.

“I am.”

“Yeah, I don’t believe it.”

“Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret, sweetheart,” Carmilla said. “Carmilla isn’t the name my parents gave me when I was born.”

“Ha! I knew it!”

Laura could practically hear the smirk oozing out of the phone as Carmilla said, “They named me Mircalla.”

Laura frowned and grabbed a pen and started scribbling both names down on a notepad.

“That’s--that’s just an anagram of Carmilla!”

“Carmilla is an anagram of Mircalla,” Carmilla said. “But that’s very observant, Cupcake.”

“I have a name, you know. I just told you what it is.”

“I know. Cupcake.”

Kirsch was going to regret this.

“All right, Carmilla, it was great talking to you--”

“So how about a date?” Carmilla said, as if she weren’t interrupting Laura’s attempt to end the phone call and her misery.

“What?”

“A date. You and me. In a dark, cozy restaurant where anything could happen.”

“In a dark, cozy restaurant where you could rob me and leave me without even a phone to call an Uber.”

It sounded ominous. But also interesting. That was how Carmilla got people to come to her shows, clearly.

“Trust me, sweetheart, I don’t need to rob you.”

“Because you’re rolling in all that newcomer magician money, huh?”

“Something like that. What do you say?”

Laura found herself agreeing to a date. To a date at a very expensive restaurant called Goblin Market that she had taken herself to one time to celebrate having enough money, at that moment, to eat at a place like Goblin Market.

The person who did the asking paid, right?

After the call ended, Laura mentally prepared herself to go halvsies and then to pay the whole bill and then to suffer the shame of being taken in by a new magician who just wanted to use her for a nice meal before going on to ruin her reputation in the magic community and move on to conning other creative types.

Anyway, she was really going on this date to get a good look at this new magician. The competition. It wasn’t about dating. This was recon.

She tried very hard to keep telling herself that it was just recon as she picked up her phone again and called Danny for help.

#

Dressed as fancily but as unlike a magician as possible, Laura met Carmilla at Goblin Market.

Carmilla’s outfit was not exactly magician-like, in that normal magicians would be more likely to dress their lovely assistants in corsets and leather than themselves, but it was pretty consistent with what Carmilla had worn during her show. She wasn’t seeming much like a normal magician so far.

(Laura liked going the traditional suit route for her shows. They had plenty of places for pockets.)

“So is that your standard date outfit?” Laura asked as they took their seats at a small table in the darkest, most remote corner of Goblin Market.

“You’ve been to my show,” Carmilla said.

“Of course. I had to check out the competition.”

“And you’re still checking out the competition.”

Laura stopped looking Carmilla over and instead focused on the waiter who appeared just then to take their drink orders and light the long taper candles that sat between the two of them.

Laura asked for water; Carmilla also asked for water, as well as a bottle of ludicrously expensive champagne.

“Don’t worry, Cupcake,” Carmilla said at Laura’s worried face. “Tonight is on me. Champagne included. All that newcomer magician money, you know.”

It would be rude to pry into Carmilla’s private affairs too much. Also, if it turned out that Carmilla was dealing drugs on the side to afford expensive dates, Laura really didn’t want to know more than she had to. So she responded with, “Thank you,” and looked at her menu.

“To answer your question,” Carmilla said in what was sounding like a surprising moment of cooperation, “this is not my standard date outfit.” A pause. “Is this filmy virgin sacrifice getup yours?”

“No. I don’t usually go on dates.”

“Really? You must get a lot of numbers from the card thing.”

“Not as many as you’d think,” Laura said. “What, uh, what brought you to my show, anyway?”

Carmilla leaned forward and raised her eyebrows. “Checking out the competition.”

Laura returned her gaze to the menu.

“And that assistant of yours sounded like he really believed it when he said it was a good show.”

“Well...what did you think?”

“Very entertaining. I particularly enjoyed it when you turned your ginger assistant into your overgrown puppy assistant.”

Their waiter returned with their water and champagne and took their orders. Carmilla ordered a steak, rare; Laura asked for fish.

“Did you enjoy my show, sweetheart?” Carmilla asked.

Recon time.

“I’m still trying to figure out how you made the panther switch,” Laura said.

Carmilla took a long sip of her champagne, perhaps trying to decide if she wanted to tell this competing magician how she did it.

“That’s easy,” she said finally, putting her champagne flute down. “I turned into a panther.”

Laura laughed. “All right, protect your secrets. I get it.”

“No, that’s it. I literally turn into a panther. It’s magic.”

Laura nodded. “I get it. You don’t have to tell me the exact mechanism of the illusion. You fooled me, I’ll stay fooled.”

Carmilla sighed.

Laura took a sip of her champagne.

“There’s no skeptic like a magician,” Carmilla said. She leaned forward again, between the candles, and raised her upper lip just enough to show off one pearly white fang. “I’m a vampire. I turn into a panther.”

“Wow, your speech sounds totally normal,” Laura said, staring in fascination at both the fangs Carmilla was now baring. “And those look super real.”

Half of Laura was impressed. The other half was weirded out that this woman wore fake fangs and claimed to be a vampire in public on dates.

“Thanks, Cupcake, but that’s because they are real and I’ve had them for centuries.”

Yep, Laura was going to have to get out of this one somehow. No more going on dates with people from the card thing.

“Uh, right, so,” Laura said, “I am going to go to the bathroom for a second. If you’ll excuse me.” Clutching her purse tightly, Laura got up and scurried away, ignoring everything she had ever learned about misdirection as she headed straight for the restaurant entrance and not to the restrooms on the opposite wall.

This got her yanked into an alley and pressed against a wall pretty quickly once she was outside.

“All right, here’s the deal,” Carmilla said, fangs still visible. “I miscalculated.”

“You really are going to rob me and leave me Uberless!” Laura cried.

“No!” Carmilla hissed. “Why would I spend that much money just to rob you? I’m trying to make a profit here!”

Laura struggled against the hands that pressed her against the wall. “Let me go, Carmilla.”

Carmilla huffed loudly. “The only reason--the  _ only _ reason I’m not turning into a panther right now to prove it to you is that you would have time to run into the street and bring witnesses into this situation. That’s it.”

“You’re a lunatic. I get it. Let me go. You do your vampire thing and I’ll do my normal magician thing and we never have to talk again.”

The hands pressed harder. “Vampiric strength. Do you feel that?” Carmilla asked.

Laura scoffed. “Oh, wow, you work out. So do I, how do you think I eat as many cookies as I do and still fit under the sawblades?”

Carmilla groaned. “Maybe I should count myself lucky that this is the worst a plan has gone wrong in the past fifty years.”

“Oh, do tell. What was your plan, Countess?”

“I was going to impress you with my vampire powers and seduce you. And maybe drink some of your blood.”

“What was stopping you from seducing me like a normal person? What’s stopping you from using your vampire powers on me right now?”

“If I use my vampire powers on you now, you’ll scream and draw witnesses. I have a good thing going. I don’t need my magic career ended before I get tired of it.”

It seemed both of them had regrets. Would it have killed Laura to call Danny as she was leaving the restaurant? No. But now there was a chance that not making that call  _ would _ kill her.

“You didn’t answer my first question.”

Carmilla mumbled something.

“What?” Laura asked.

“You’re the first magician I’ve tried to seduce,” Carmilla muttered. “I didn’t count on--”

“Oh, shit, this alley’s taken,” a voice several feet away said. It was only mildly surprised, but it was enough to cut Carmilla off and draw her attention and Laura’s.

“Ell? What are you doing here?” Carmilla asked, her grip on Laura’s arms loosening.

It was Carmilla’s lovely blonde assistant Ell, all right. She pulled another figure into view and said, “It looks like you’ve got a pretty good idea of what I was planning.”

Laura squinted at Ell’s companion. They were backlit by streetlights, but she was pretty sure it was…

“Danny?” Laura said.

Danny raised a hand in greeting. “Hey, Laura! How’s your hot date going? I got one of my own!”

Laura was not about to be shown up by her ex with whom she had an okay friendship going. There was no way in hell or Hogwarts that she was going to admit to Danny that she was in the middle of trying to escape from a crazy person claiming to be a vampire while Danny, who had clearly had more than a sip or two of champagne, pranced off to be happy with another lovely assistant.

“My hot date is going great!” Laura said. She actually managed to free her arms from Carmilla’s no longer iron grip, and rather than flee, she wrapped her arms around Carmilla’s neck and kissed her.

First, Laura was pleased that the crazy person she was kissing did not taste like blood. That could have been a real concern. Second, she was especially pleased to find that Carmilla caught on quickly and kissed her back, putting a fine show for their audience.

The fangs were a little weird.

But otherwise, Carmilla was an excellent kissing partner. Really knew her way around a girl’s face. This kiss was almost enough to make Laura forget that she was acting.

“Come on, Danny, before the magicians ruin the mood,” Ell said.

Laura heard two sets of footsteps grow distant on the sidewalk, and she reluctantly pulled her face away from Carmilla’s.

“Thanks,” Laura said, looking down at the ground until Carmilla spoke.

“Any time at all, sweetheart,” Carmilla answered, gently brushing a lock of Laur’s hair out of her face. “What was that about?” She licked her lips. “Making the ginger giant jealous? She your ex?”

Laura looked away from Carmilla’s lips and down at the ground again, at an empty beer bottle that sat forlornly a few feet away from them. “Uh, no, I just...didn’t want her to worry about me.” The beer bottle made no move to save Laura from this situation. “She is my ex, though,” Laura mumbled.

“You’re being pinned against a wall in an alley by a vampire. Maybe she should worry.” Her voice was now low and sultry, as if it hadn't been either of those things before, and Laura felt nervous. Not being-pinned-against-a-wall-by-a-crazy-person nervous, or even being-pinned-against-a-wall-by-a-murderous-vampire nervous.

“Vampires aren’t real,” Laura reminded her. “And you’re not actually pinning me against the wall anymore.”

“I don’t have to, with you draped over me like this.” 

Laura withdrew her arms like a cat retracting its claws and pressed them against the bricks behind her.

Carmilla chuckled. “If it makes you feel any better, Ell is  _ my _ ex. That whole magic show? All true.”

“She shot you in the heart with an arrow?” Laura asked.

“Okay, that didn’t happen. But it’s a great trick.”

Laura couldn’t help agreeing. It  _ was _ a great trick. She nodded. “I know how you did it and I was still worried for you.”

Carmilla smiled. A real smile, not a smirk or a sneer. “Thanks, Cupcake.”

Laura now realized that Carmilla was no longer touching her. Could she just walk out of the alley? Was she free to go?

“So,” Laura said, “maybe we should...call this date over and go on with our lives now?”

“Better idea. Why don’t we call this date over and plan a second one?” Carmilla answered.

Laura wanted to protest. She really did. But her mouth wasn’t forming the words.

“Maybe I’ll show you how the panther switch is done.”

A small, easy-to-ignore part of Laura’s mind said, “Curiosity killed the cat.”

“Satisfaction brought it back,” said the part of Laura’s mind that had caused her to get into mildly dangerous magic and escape artistry over the protests of her father in the first place.

The small, easy-to-ignore part of Laura’s mind tried to say something about a cat killing the curious.

Laura said, “All right.”

With a new smirk, Carmilla said, “I’ll call you.” She then kissed Laura once more and vanished theatrically into the night, leaving Laura alone with her poor decision-making skills.

#

Laura had her response to Carmilla’s impending call all planned out. No date, but good luck with magic, nice job on the panther switch. She was resolved. No more weird dates with weird magicians.

Then Carmilla called her while she was getting ready for a night of Netflix and cookies on her normally peaceful, happy couch.

Laura knew it was Carmilla even though she had pointedly refused to create an entry in her contacts list for Carmilla because she had memorized Carmilla’s number somewhere along the way.

Not answering was, conceivably, an option.

Laura’s ringtone, a loud, tinny rendition of the  _ Doctor Who _ theme, insisted.

Defeated, Laura accepted the call and brought the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“Hey, cutie,” Carmilla said.

“Hi, Carmilla.”

“How about that second date?”

Laura forgot everything she had planned to say and found herself agreeing once again to Carmilla’s request for a second date.

The second she hung up, Laura threw her phone to the other end of the couch and buried her face in a throw pillow. Thinking better of that, she dove after the phone, upsetting her package of cookies, and texted Danny:

_ Help, I agreed to another date with Carmilla. _

When Danny didn’t answer immediately, Laura slithered half off the couch to retrieve her cookies from the rug. She took a minute to settle herself in again, creating a cocoon out of blankets and pillows and putting her cookies just a few inches from her hands so she wouldn’t have to spend much time outside her soft, handmade nest.

Her phone beeped and buzzed at her. She pulled it out of the depths of her blanket cocoon and looked at the screen.

_ You don’t need help. Your last date went pretty well, right? _

Laura groaned and sank deeper into her blankets. She was going to keep that charade up as long as she had to. As far as Danny was concerned, Laura’s love life was fine and not full of weirdos. Or one weirdo.

She shoved a cookie in her mouth, dropped her phone somewhere among the blankets and cushions, and chose the first Disney movie she found in Netflix’s selection.

#

Carmilla’s grand gesture for date number two was not expensive champagne at an expensive restaurant. This time, she invited Laura to see her show.

“I’ve seen your show,” Laura had protested.

“You’ll have the best seat in the house,” Carmilla had promised.

And so she did, because Carmilla had placed her right offstage, where she could see behind every curtain that was raised by a lovely assistant, into every hollow platform, and under every drape.

From this angle, even fewer of the illusions mystified her. She saw stagehands move about, lovely assistants creeping in and out of trick boxes, the wires that led to squibs, even Carmilla’s deft sleight of hand. Watching a magic show from the wrong angle enriched the experience more than anyone who only stayed in the audience could ever know.

Laura had to admit that this was a good way to seduce her. She just wasn’t going to admit that to Carmilla.

As the time came for the panther switch, though, she started to rethink that. She wanted to know how it was done, and something about being fooled made her feel pretty amenable to a good seduction.

She sat stock-still when the cage was lowered so she could focus all her attention on this illusion. Even from this angle, she couldn’t see how it was anything other than an ordinary steel cage. There were no hidden panels or mirrors blocking the stage lights from shining through the bars. The chains were just for show, sure, but they looked like they would make it that much harder to pull a switch in midair.

Ell and the mother wrestled Carmilla into the cage and chained it shut.

As Carmilla made a show of struggling against the bars, she turned and caught Laura’s eye, just long enough to wink at her.

Laura didn’t take her eyes off of Carmilla.

The sheet to hide the trick from the audience went up.

Carmilla released the bars of the cage and crouched down. She looked at Laura, grinned, and turned into a black panther with a small puff of black smoke that wasn’t even visible to the audience.

Just poof.

Girl, poof, smoke, panther. No misdirection behind the sheet. No time to move these fairly large physical space-taking-up things, a human being and a black panther, around.

The panther bared its teeth at Laura in something that might have been a grin, and the sheet fell, revealing the panther to the audience. They gasped and applauded, and then on cue, the cage fell with a crash, the chains clattering off and the door opening.

The panther leaped out of the cage, and the two assistants raced off the stage in practiced terror, the panther close at their heels.

The two women stopped running as soon as they were out of view of the audience, but the panther ran right up to Laura and placed one large paw on each of her knees.

That thought, from before, about the cat killing the curious, returned to the forefront of Laura’s mind.

Two big yellow eyes stared into Laura’s.

Laura didn’t dare blink.

A rough, damp tongue scraped against her cheek, and the panther was gone, retrieving a gory prop arm to finish the show with.

Smoke and mirrors, Laura told herself. She had identified the smoke (the smoke that didn’t serve the illusion at all from the important angles) and simply hadn’t yet found the mirrors. The...great number of mirrors that had to be necessary to put both Carmilla and a very friendly panther in a cage.

The panther returned to the cage and the sheet went up again. In another puff of smoke, one not even big enough to hide an upright human, Carmilla was in the cage, and the panther had vanished.

Laura found herself clapping faintly, still baffled by what she had just seen. She stopped and rested her hands on her chair’s armrests as Carmilla sauntered offstage and up to her.

“So, Cupcake,” Carmilla said, leaning down over her, “what’d you think?”

Laura stared at her. “How did you do the panther switch?”

“I’m glad you asked.”

One puff of scentless smoke later, a giant black cat stood in Carmilla’s place with its forepaws once again on Laura’s knees. It licked Laura’s cheek and took a seat on the floor.

“Oh my god,” Laura said.

The panther looked very pleased with itself.

“This can’t be happening,” Laura said.

Another puff of smoke, and there sat Carmilla, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms around around them. “Can’t it?”

“How much of that show was...things like this?” Laura asked.

“Oh, anything you couldn’t figure out from here was probably vampiric strength or speed or intellect.” Carmilla flashed a fang.

“I can’t date a vampire,” Laura said.

“Why not? Your assistant’s doing it.”

Ell walked past, carrying the fake arm. “Stop telling your prey that I’m a vampire,” she said.

Carmilla unfolded and called after Ell, “I told you, I decided not to eat her!”

“Let me keep my secrets!” Ell called back, not turning.

“I’m going to be eaten by a vampire,” Laura said. She looked up at the high ceiling. “Dad, I’m sorry I got into magic and got eaten by a vampire.” Her dad wasn’t even up there. He was at her childhood home, worrying about her and packing her care packages of bear spray.

“I’m not going to eat you,” Carmilla said, standing. “I  _ was _ going to drain your blood and dispose of your corpse in a creative and foolproof way to eliminate the competition, but, uh...it turns out that I like you better alive.”

For a split second, Laura saw vulnerability on Carmilla’s face as she spoke. Maybe Carmilla could be trusted. Maybe it was vampire mind control.

“Does Danny know that Ell is a vampire?” Laura asked.

Carmilla shrugged. “I don’t know. I stopped getting involved in Ell’s love life when Mother split us up and she tried to kill me.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Carmilla extended a hand to Laura. “I baked cookies for this date. Would you like them?”

Well, if the cat was going to kill the curious, at least Laura could have cookies and a chance to text her dad first. She put her hand in Carmilla’s and stood up.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this far! I hope you enjoyed it. This was all inspired by spending too much time watching Breaking the Magician's Code on Netflix and not knowing anything about stage magic outside of that, so, you know, blame the Masked Magician for everything that's wrong or bad.


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